Archive/File: people/i/irving.david/libel.suit/transcripts/day004.21
Last-Modified: 2000/08/01
Q. It was a long question.
A. I have taken a very lengthy entry of some 20 lines.
I have had to condense it into a paragraph of three or
four or five lines for that particular passage and I think
I have done an adequate job. If I was going to write a
book two or three times as long endlessly boring, as the
academics write them, then no doubt I could have put in
the whole of that quotation undigested, unanalysed.
I have had the difficult job that all authors face which
is to condense something into a reasonable length while
. P-189
not losing any of the essence. You can pick your
individual sentences where a word is wrong and take that
sentence out and the weight of the sentence remains the
same. Hitler says: "I wanted to send them out." Hitler
says: "I have been keeping a little book and one day it is
going to come out." Hitler says: "I don't believe in
looking for problems if we don't have problems. Look at
the case of Galen, that is another one that I am going to
put on the back burner." This is typical Hitler.
Q. "That is what I did do with the Jews. I had to remain
inactive for a long time too."
A. Do not forget, Mr Rampton, we have a whole series of
documents which lie in my direction and not in yours.
Q. What is worst, Mr Irving, I suggest and then I am going to
leave it, what is worst is that not only have you used a
translation, not even your translation, a translation by
somebody else which you knew to be wrong, but you have
given a reference to the original which will make the
reader suppose that this is first generation, mint new
Irving translation?
A. I do not think it says that in the footnotes at all. It
is the historian's job to give the most accurate source
reference he can give which will point the reader in the
direction of the original document, rather than in some
second or third ----
Q. This is a direct quotation of that passage?
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A. If I were to act like your experts and just take books
down off a shelf and use those as sources, this would be
improper. I would far prefer to point people reading my
books to where they can find the original documents so
they can check it for themselves.
Q. That is exactly what you have done in this case, is it
not? You have actually used some rotten old translation
by Trevor-Roper or somebody, you have repeated it again
and again through your editions. You have the original in
your ----
A. Indeed in discovery.
Q. --- in your office all the time. You do not use it, but
you tell the reader you have?
A. No. I am satisfied that the translation I use is an
accurate representation of the document I have, apart from
that one sentence which has obviously been interpolated by
the English interpreter which I find absolutely
unconscionable to put a sentence into a translation that
does not even exist. I know that the other historians are
jealous that I have got all these documents and they did
not, but they should not start poking fingers and sneering
at me because I get these things.
Q. I do not know. We will have this bit of the transcript
relayed to, Professor Evans is here, but some of the
others are not.
A. I am looking forward to when they come.
. P-191
MR JUSTICE GRAY: But not to Trevor-Roper because it was not
his translation. It was not Trevor-Roper's translation.
MR RAMPTON: Can we take that bit of the transcript out and put
in the right ----
MR JUSTICE GRAY: I think in fairness, yes.
A. He was the editor actually. It is a very good
translation. It is a very flowing translation.
MR RAMPTON: Now I want to go back, if I may, because that is
where all this started, to Hitler's War, page 465 in the
1991 edition.
A. Yes. Is this where I say: "Upon arrival thousands were
simply murdered"? Is this the passage you are referring
to?
Q. I am sorry, Mr Irving, I have just lost my place because
I moved. I have found it. I am just going to ask you one
quick question about the top of the page, referring back
to the diary entry of 27th March 1942. You write in the
middle of the first paragraph on 465:
"But he evidently never discussed these
realities with Hitler. Thus this two-faced Minister
dictated after a further visit to Hitler on April 26th:
I have once again talked over the Jewish question with the
Fuhrer. His position on this problem is merciless. He
wants to force the Jews right out of Europe. At the
moment Himmler is handling the major transfer of Jews from
the German cities into the Eastern gettoes".
. P-192
Why is it evident that this two-faced
Minister,
the odious Dr Goebbels, never discussed these
realities
with Hitler? Is it the same point we discussed
earlier?
A. Is it what?
Q. The same point as we discussed earlier?
A. Which point is that?
Q. Well, you said in the earlier part that we looked at:
"That Goebbels privately knew more is plain from his
diary entry of 27th"?
A. No, the point I am making there is that had Goebbels
discussed this kind of thing, what he privately knew,
with
Hitler, this two-faced Minister, then undoubtedly
Hitler
would not have been able to make the kind of remarks
he
did in private conversation with Himmler, Lamus and
Bormann which are recorded in the table talks.
Q. Why not?
A. Then that would have evoked gusts of laughter from
Himmler. Himmler would have said: "Mein Fuhrer, don't
you
realize what's going on?"
Q. Sorry, I am not following that at all.
A. Right. We have seen, and we can see until the Court
screams for mercy, in the documents, in the table
talks,
how Hitler repeatedly makes statements which are only
reconcilable with the notion that he was familiar with
the
expulsion, which cannot be brought into conformity
with
the notion that he knew what was happening when they
got
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there, the European Jews.
Q. Suppose, as many people have proposed, I do not know
with
what persuasiveness, Mr Irving, in your mind, but
suppose
as they have proposed Hitler was as often as not
simply
euphemising?
A. Why should he? He is sitting there at the table with
the
arch gangsters, with Himmler, Bormann and the rest who
know perfectly well what is going on. Why should he
euphemise to them when he is sitting with them? This
is a
secret record. It is never going to be published.
They
did not know about George Weidenfeld and Hugh
Trevor-Roper.
Q. Do you have a view of who was at which table talk when
you
read the table talks?
A. Yes, usually there is a line above the table talks
saying
who is present as the guests of honour. Usually three
or
four people are listed. Verna Kopen did the same in
his
records of the table talks.
MR JUSTICE GRAY: I am a bit puzzled about this, because if
you
interpret the table talk as meaning that Hitler really
was
thinking only in terms of deportation, I know it has
been
a long day, but how do you reconcile that with your
acceptance, because I understand you do accept it ----
A. Yes.
Q. --- that he knew all about the shooting on a massive
scale
on the Eastern Front?
. P-194
A. I think your Lordship has grasped the nub of the whole
problem.
Q. What is the answer?
A. The answer is I think that he drew a distinction in
his
own mind between the Eastern vermin, the enemy, and
the
Germans and the Europeans whom he still regarded as
being
superior.
Q. That is not clear from this passage in your book, is
it?
A. It will be clear from the other passages that he does
draw
this distinction, my Lord, and perhaps I ought to look
some of these passages out and draw your Lordship's
attention to them. But this is the only way you can
explain this very evident dichotomy which does exist
in
the records, that on the one hand he is saying these
things and on other hand he is evidently knowing other
things. Also I think you have something which
probably
only psychiatrists can explain, that people can
compartmentalize their knowledge of certain things.
There
is a kind of Richard Nixon kind of complex comes in
saying: "Fellows, do it but don't let me be told". I
am
quite happy to believe that this kind of thing also
went
on. But in the absence of any evidence it would take
a
very adventurous writer to set it down, except in the
most
speculative terms.
MR RAMPTON: Well, Mr Irving, I am going to have to ask you
to
look at some of these table talks, I think, because
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contrary to what you say they are nowhere near as
sanitized, I do not believe, as you say they are. We
may
also have to look at some of the Goebbels' diary
entries.
Would your Lordship wish me to start on that exercise
now?
MR JUSTICE GRAY: Shall we make a bit of a start.
A. Would it be useful to start with the very last one,
July
1942 where Hitler is still talking about Madagascar.
MR RAMPTON: I am sorry, it would not be convenient to me.
When you cross-examine you will find you have a
particular
order in your head or on your piece of paper.
MR JUSTICE GRAY: You must follow your own course.
A. I was trying to cut to the bottom line which is a way
of
speeding things on.
MR RAMPTON: One might not agree that it is the bottom
line.
Can we start, please, I am taking these from Professor
Evans's report because there is a collection in this
part
of the report which the court might find useful, first
of
all on page 413, this is the bit we looked at before,
in
paragraph 15, we read the earlier bit before about the
donkeys in Rome or wherever it was, Hitler says:
"Ich sage nur, er muss weg", "I am just
saying
he", that is the Jews, "have got to go. If he goes
kaput
in the course of it I can't help that. I only see one
thing, absolute extermination if they don't go of
their
own accord." The German for "absolute extermination"
in
English is "absolute Ausrottung", that is at the
bottom of
. P-196
the page.
A. Yes, literally routing out, "Ausrottung".
Q. Yes, it is a word which may change its sense like so
many
words in so many languages according to its context.
A. And who is speaking it and in what century and in what
year.
Q. I do not have to the Ausrottung argument every time we
come across the word.
A. We have not had it yet.
Q. It is an argument that could go on until next
Christmas.
A. We the vernichtung argument but not the Ausrottung
argument.
MR JUSTICE GRAY: You have touched on it. Let us move on.
MR RAMPTON: I am interested in the words "wenn er dabei
kaputt".
A. Yes.
Q. What do you say those words mean?
A. If he goes "caput".
Q. And what does "going kaput" mean?
A. The word "caput" is like "going for a Burton", it is
one
of those words which is a piece of vernacular, a piece
of
slang, all the wheels drop off. It is that kind of
thing. If a car goes caput the wheels have dropped
off.
Q. If I achieve my object of achieving a complete
Ausrottung,
let us compromise, call is extirpation or
annihilation, I
do not know, of the Jew, it does not matter to me in
the
. P-197
slightest if that means death?
A. I am sure it did not, not to Hitler, no. He did not
really apply his mind very much to what happened once
they
had got out.
Q. Then look at the next ----
A. You mean by merciless or pitiless?

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